. An old friend of mine (ok, old boyfriend) was in the habit of going up to Kennebunkport, Maine every summer with his now ex-wife. They had a favorite inn he liked to stay at. My friend is not really the outdoorsy type, like I am, and has gotten kind of stodgy. He says he mostly just spent his time there hanging out at the inn, reading and going online. Umm, you could do that at home, for a whole lot less money! But of course, the scenery is beautiful, and this hotel is right on the water, not far from the Bush compound.
Now that his ex is out of the picture, he still wants to go up there in June and wants some company. So he’s invited me to come along, along with his sister. I have been dying to go somewhere and in fact, my last vacation, also to Maine, was about 5 years ago! I have skipped vacations becus I have been out of f/t work for so long, but now I have an opportunity to do something fun.
The thing is, it would be very expensive and if I had my own way, I wouldn’t have chosen Kennebunkport, which is especially pricey. Another unfortunate thing is that we'd be pretty much locked into going on one particular date in late June, when my friend's sister, a nurse, has already put in for time off. It just so happens that this is the cut-off time when many of the hotels up in Maine consider it the start of summer (higher) rates. So this 4-day period includes just 1 night at a lower rate becus it falls in the "shoulder" season and 3 nights at full rates in the peak summer season.
My friend and his sister want to stay at this very expensive inn which costs $250 and up per night. Since we’d all be getting our own rooms anyway, I came up with the idea of trying to find another less expensive place nearby that would allow me to save $$ on the room. I don’t plan on spending much time there anyway.
The cheapest place I could find was a simple motel that still costs a fair amount; with the 7% state tax, it comes to $142.50 a night, or $610 for the 4 nights we’d be up there. Meals, of course, would be an additional cost, and while I don’t have to have full course dinners each night, I would like to sample the famous lobster roll sandwiches at $13.50.
Otherwise, it seems like a fairly quiet town, so after doing some research about things to do, I would mostly just want to wander around with my camera on the beaches and around town. Maybe do a walking tour or rent a bike. My friend said he’d drop me off wherever I wanted to go, like the nearby Rachel Carson wildlife preserve in Wells. I could spend 3 or 4 hours there enjoying the trails and then they’d pick me up for lunch, for example. Not sure what his sister would want to do, but this would enable each of us to do what we wanted and still have company.
If I were planning a trip myself, I wouldn’t be going to this particular destination; there are many places closer to home (this is 4 hours), far less expensive and with more interesting things to do. However, if left to my own devices, I wouldn’t be going anywhere, so this is what I have to work with.
The arrangement is atypical, but if we didn’t do this I could easily see myself being very unhappy at spending so much money and then not getting to do things I enjoy. My friend is not athletic, isn’t a walker and has a fairly short attention span. My interests run more to the out of doors and communing with nature, especially with a camera.
This kind of points to the other reason for some hesitation on my part, because my friend can be very controlling and set in his ways. I have no doubt this was largely the reason his ex divorced him. He likes to call the shots at all times, and to me, that can be positively stifling. So initially, before he told me he’d invited his sister to come along, I was thinking a vacation with just the 2 of us wouldn’t work. Now that he’s invited his sister, I could see her being a kind of buffer who would probably keep me and R. from butting heads quite as much. She’s very easygoing and a few years older than me.
So, would you do it? I’m mainly concerned about spending so much money. With meals, and probably chipping in for gas, we’re probably looking at $1,000 for 4 nights up there. I think I could get my neighbor behind me, the one who just got a job I told her about, to feed my cats each day.
The little motel I found looks clean and simple. It’s the kind of place where the door opens directly into your room. Normally I think I’d be a little nervous about staying alone in a place like that, but this is hoity Kennebunkport, and I’d make sure my friend watched me enter the room at night before they left. The room has its own bath, a TV, mini fridge and microwave. So I would bring a cooler full of fresh fruit snacks, tea and cereal so I could save money on eating breakfasts out.
I checked availability and I think they still have rooms; some of the other places I checked seemed already pretty well booked in June.
I would probably want to try to finagle it so that I had a new credit card bonus to work for on this trip, and since my friends don't do credit card rewards the way I do, I could charge their meals to my card and have them pay me back. So I could probably shoot for one of those cards with a higher spending target than I can hope to shoot for with my normal expenses.
Vacation Vacillation?
April 8th, 2013 at 02:10 pm
April 8th, 2013 at 02:21 pm 1365427272
April 8th, 2013 at 02:54 pm 1365429247
I think I'd skip the outing. I do think that it is time for you to take a vacation (five years is too long!). And I'd pick something you like to do (outdoorsy thing) as opposed to being at an inn in an expensive place potentially doing expensive things with a person who might be controlling and stodgy. And maybe you do something slightly off season to bring the prices down.
April 8th, 2013 at 03:04 pm 1365429861
April 8th, 2013 at 03:23 pm 1365431015
April 8th, 2013 at 03:29 pm 1365431348
I did forget to mention that one reason R. wants to stay at this particular hotel is becus they allow pets, but they have a strict rule about not leaving your pet alone in the room, so he would have to bring the dog everywhere we went. He would probably eat all his meals at fast food type places or places where you can sit outside, becus he'd have the dog with him. So unless his sister wanted to do a nice meal indoors somewhere, that wouldn't be an option for me since I'm not going to dine alone. The meal thing isn't a big deal for me, but having the dog always would further limit where we could go and what we could do.
April 8th, 2013 at 03:57 pm 1365433044
I really think you need to consider a vacation alone or with someone with similar interests. The destination area sounds really, really pricy given your circumstances.
April 8th, 2013 at 04:00 pm 1365433224
April 8th, 2013 at 09:34 pm 1365453277
April 9th, 2013 at 01:47 am 1365468436
April 9th, 2013 at 03:33 am 1365474822
April 9th, 2013 at 12:42 pm 1365507733